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unfortunately, while not absolved of responsibility for themselves (which would indicate a different approach to the crisis) the angry people at Syntagma are perfectly right that they are not responsible for the state of government simply because they did or did not vote or participate in a political party. That would be something akin to a magical conception of politics, where the personal decision to vote or not to vote, although incapable of actually affecting anything, magically makes the person responsible for government officials’ decisions and liable for much more than what could be considered proportional to their involvement. Indeed, it appears that the Greek state is an inverse corporation where shareholders/citizens liability is unlimited (except by the very costly option of emigration).

But this is unreasonable: just because I was born in Greece does not mean I am liable for anything more than a) my share of public property and b) damages caused by my personal actions. It is even more unreasonable that the same people who personally took the actions that damaged the public purse should now be forcing me to pay for those damages. I accept that the losses that are caused by bad executive decisions must be taken out of each one’s share of common property, but it is highly immoral that they be taken out of the private property of those who had no (real) say in the matter.

So the angry people in Syntagma are justified in opposing the current situation. Unfortunately they are not justified in most of the alternative situations they imagine, most of which absolve them of a perfectly reasonable liability considering their share of public property. So for example they don’t want to see ‘fat’ public corporations be sold to the highest bidder, because ‘they belong to the people’. But you can’t have it both ways, either you have limited responsibility and liability or unlimited. Either government responsibility (and liability) is reducible to citizens’ responsibility (and liability) – so the public debt is in effect a personal debt for each one of us – or citizens have limited responsibility (and liability).

In the first case it is a matter of deciding collectively how we will repay this essentially personal debt or if we will default all together. That is indeed a huge responsibility, and the angry people in Syntagma calling for direct democracy are most probably feeling safe from this responsibility knowing that it is unlikely to happen.

In the other case we may claim that we are not to be held accountable for the negative margin of the budget and we can even fire this incapable government but we cannot dictate how it will go about it’s business in trying to rescue this failed state. They must sort it out and are personally liable for any personal wrongdoings.